The remains of at least three individuals were found by Chinese archaeologists at
Maludong (meaning Red Deer Cave), near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan Province during
1989. They remained unstudied until research began in 2008, involving scientists from
six Chinese and five Australian institutions, including La Trobe University.
The fossils are of a people with a highly unusual mix of archaic
and modern anatomical features, and are the youngest of their
kind ever found in mainland East Asia.
Details of the discovery were published in the journal PLoS One.
The team has been cautious about classifying the fossils
because of their unusual mosaic of features.
Dr Andy Herries—Australian Research Fellow and Head of the
Australian Archaeomagnetism Laboratory within the Archaeology
Program at La Trobe University— was one of the scientists
involved in the recent excavations and research.
‘One of the biggest problems in understanding human evolution
in East and S.E Asia is that many of the fossils have been found
out of context, which has meant that it has been difficult, if not
impossible to assess their age.
‘In contrast the Maludong remains were excavated from a small
cave, whose deposition occurred over a short time period. As
such, they are some of the best dated fossils from the region and
date to a warm-wet phase during a period of quite rapidly
changing climate at the end of the last glacial period 14,500 to
13,000 years ago,’ says Dr Herries.
Dated to just 14,500 to 11,500 years old, these people would
have shared the landscape with modern-looking people at a time
when China’s earliest farming cultures were beginning, says the
international team of scientists led by Associate Professor Darren
Curnoe, of the University of New South Wales, and Professor Ji
Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and
Archeology.
A Chinese geologist found a fourth partial skeleton in 1989 in a
cave near the village of Longlin, in neighbouring Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region. It stayed encased in a block of rock until
2008 when the international team removed and reconstructed the
fossils.
The skulls and teeth from Maludong and Longlin are very similar
to each other and show an unusual mixture of archaic and
modern anatomical features, as well as some previously unseen
characters.
‘Historically, Europe and Africa have been the focus of intense
international research regarding our human origins. However,
due to Asia’s massive size and rugged terrain there is likely also
a rich record of fossils still waiting to be found that will further
overturn what we know about our evolutionary history’ says Dr
Herries.
“The Maludong and Longlin remains suggest that it is quite
possible that small relict populations of humans from earlier
migrations into Asia survived in remote areas until much later
than previously thought”
‘The discovery of the Red Deer Cave people opens the next
chapter in the human evolutionary story – the Asian chapter –
and it’s a story that’s just beginning to be told,’ says Professor
Curnoe.
MORE INFORMATION
Further information on research opportunities in the
Archaeology program can be found at:
latrobe.edu.au/humanities/areas-of-study/historical-and-
cultural-studies/archaeology/research